The Job Boom

Is The County Prepared?

Job Market Forecast Is Just One Key To A Career

Students preparing to plunge into Du Page`s work force should consider not only what the job market will bear but their own particular likes and aptitudes, local placement experts say.

There`s definitely not much of a job market out there for poets or alchemists. But there are plenty of positions in teaching, sales, customer service and the technical fields that could satisfy those with a poetic bent or a penchant for trying new things.

``Students may enter college with one perceived notion and leave with another,`` said Herb Rinehart, director of placement at College of Du Page. Future employment prospects definitely should be considered by students contemplating career options, he said. But the equation for successfully choosing an appropriate career path contains variables in addition to job market projections. ``That`s only one factor. You have to remember people have various interests and aptitudes. They might have a vision of a career. And I think those things change over a lifetime.``

``I have a strong belief in career development as a lifetime process,``

said Connie Webster, placement director at the National College of Education. Most people change jobs between 11 and 13 times and switch careers three or four times throughout their lives, she said.

``Employers are sensitive to skills that come from a liberal arts education,`` said Gary Skoog, placement director at Elmhurst College. ``The broader your education, the better you`re going to be able to deal with a variety of problems.

``I`m a backer of broad-based liberal arts education because you can study one thing, and five years later it`s going to be gone (from the job opportunity landscape),`` said Skoog.

For example, Skoog said, the college`s enrollment in education curriculum has doubled in the last five years in apparent reaction to a perceived teacher shortage. ``Those things seem to run in cycles.``

Skoog said he`s seen students take a variety of approaches to making career choices. ``Certainly, some come in and inquire (about job prospects)

when they`re determining their majors. Some others don`t really care. They`re just going to pursue history or whatever it is and not worry about the job market.``

About half the students enrolled at the National College of Education, which maintains two campuses in Lombard, are pursuing education degrees, said Webster. The college also offers business, accounting, computer science and human services curriculum.

``My belief is that you need to find something you`re good at and are willing to work hard at,`` said Webster.